PONTIAC - At Erebus Haunted Attraction, a display with digital counters called "The Wimp Board" has two categories: "wimps" and "wetters." By the end of the Halloween season this year, there's likely to be about 500 wimps and 70 wetters tabulated.

"Those are all verified," Ed Terebus said of the wetters.

The four-story haunted house that Terebus, 50, co-owns with his brother, Jim, 59, dates back to 1928.

It's filled with state-of-the-art audio, visual and tactile effects, including a "buried alive" segment, as well as more than 90 actors working on a given night and animatronic zombies, gorillas and birds.

When the "buried alive" room debuted, a 40-something man nearly had to be carried out. He "was screaming like a 12-year-old girl having her arms ripped off," Terebus said.

Among the blood-curdling screams, rusty medical equipment and hungry zombies, Terebus said two truly controversial themes are avoided: sex and religion.

It takes 35 to 45 minutes to make it through Erebus, but that "depends on how fast you're running," Terebus said.

"There's a long time where things are grabbing at you, biting at you and you're being buried alive," he said.

This year, Erebus opens on the most apropos date possible: Friday, Sept. 13.

New to Erebus is an online reservation system that allows customers to go to the haunted attraction's website, pick a 30-minute time slot and get inside within a half-hour, instead of potentially waiting in line for hours.

Another new segment is a circus sideshow zone, complete with a levitating snake charmer.

A "time slice" feature also is new, shooting a 180-degree-picture of customers in a moment of terror using 48 cameras at once.

Erebus also is working with charities and fundraisers, with a program that gives a promotional code to a nonprofit, which then receives $5 for every Erebus visitor that buys a ticket using the code.

Terebus compared the haunted house to a Broadway show: Eight full-time employees work year-round to prepare for a more than month-long run of performances.

"The difference between us and a movie," he said, "is a movie has to do it once and catch it on film. I have to do it hundreds of times, and do it as well the last time as the first." Tens of thousands of fear-seekers come to downtown Pontiac each fall to visit.

Erebus Haunted Attraction, which opened in 1999, held the Guinness World Record for the world's largest walk-through haunted attraction for five seasons, from 2005 to 2009. Southeastern Michigan is the country's haunted house capital, Terebus said. "We're forced to be different and unique."

The brothers also have purchased the former Salvation Army building on North Saginaw Street at Lafayette Street. They haven't decided what to do with the property yet. "We're excited to be part of the rejuvenation of the downtown Pontiac area as it's growing," Jim said.

Terebus has traveled as far as Shanghai, China to consult on the construction of a haunted house, and Erebus Haunted Attraction was a founding member of America Haunts, an organization of the country's top-shelf haunted houses.

The Erebus searchlight is from Houston, Texas. Artificial flame units came from a cruise ship in Florida.

A morgue was removed from a closed insane asylum on the west side of Michigan, including a cooler, tables and lights.

Terebus has much more in storage, including 40 caskets and a vintage electroshock therapy machine.

The haunted house's namesake is a Greek mythological creature who's the son of chaos and brother of night. The creature's red, horned visage, with sharp teeth and pointy ears, watches over downtown Pontiac year-round from the building's exterior.

The mythological Erebus creature also happens to be one letter away from the Terebus brothers' name.

"We were destined to do this," Ed said. "I scare people for a living, man. You can't get much better than that."